Sleepwalk
"How do you handle being alone?" James asked solemnly, observing the stars as he sat down next to Regulus.
"I thought I told you fuck off" James shrugged at his response, closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall behind him. Reg turned his head over to take in the sight of his brother's best friend, sitting next to him, making conversation. Yet for some reason, it felt right.
"you don't get attached in the first place", a simple answer, one that wasn't a lie but needed more complexity to be completely truthful.
"Huh", James still had his eyes closed
"Why do you ask?"
"Cause I'm alone right now"
"Welcome to the club, population: 2" at that James let a low chuckle, opening his eyes, as Regulus looked away, feigning indifference. 'Cause Reg will not be caught staring greedily at James's adam's apple.
"Why are you here James?"
"Cause you saved my life"
"that's a stupid reason."
"can you explain it to me?" James looks over at Regulus, who cocks an eyebrow.
"The not wanting to be a girl thing", Reg immediately looks away, and crosses his arms over. "Forget I ever said that to you alright"
" If you're worried about Sirius, trust me I'm not telling him anything anytime soon"
"Why do you wanna know?"
"Cause, I wanna help."
"Oh, Great Potter! Please help me become a boy and get rid of my stupid tits, using your hero complex powers" again for some reason James found his insults funny, bursting out loud with sweet laughter that made Reg want to capture it in a record and play it on repeat.
"Seriously though, I want to understand"
"Really?"
"Yeah" a long pause, but just about when James was going to say something, Reg apprehensively agreed
"Fine, but you cannot tell anyone"
"Cross my heart" Fucking hell Regulus was well and truly falling for James Potter. He has no idea how he's gonna explain this one to Barty. But for now, he lets the most unlikely person help.
Once Regulus slowly started he couldn't stop no matter how hard he tried. He explains how it's always felt like a box like he couldn't see himself in the mirror, but someone else. How his name was Regulus, how it hurt to look in the mirror, how Sirius has always seen him as the little sister he needed to protect. As soon as he's done, he looks over at James waiting for a reaction, for a judgement.
"Did you want to cut your hair? Like I know before it was already short but like shorter you know?" Another pause.
"What? My mother would kill me"
"yeah, but I know this charm that Mo- a friend uses to hide stuff on their body that they don't want their parents to see, 'cause they got a tattoo. How it works is, we would cut your hair then place the charm then just imagine how you looked before. It kinda works like that Fidelius Charm, the other half of the charm is put on the people who you want to see you truly!" James couldn’t see Regulus’s face, turned away to look up at the sky.
"How long does it last? A charm like that has to be very skilled" Regulus said quietly, trying to find every counter-argument to this plan that he could. Fuck what demon possessed to tell James about this, of all people and of all topics.
"About half a year, my friend says they can feel it when it starts to wear and just reapplies it, come on it'll work trust me!"
"Show it to me first, draw on your hand or something then place the charm" The thing about James is that he tries to help, and he often does. The problem is, Regulus is left here with a lot of hope. Something that is dangerous, changes your plans and makes you act without caution.
"Alright fine" James grabs a tiny ink bottle, dips his pinky in it and draws a smiley face on his hand. He starts to whisper Latin with waves of his wand, but Regulus is too busy staring at his hand, watching with hope as the smiley face disappears. Hope is powerful and it gets people killed, or worse, a way out.
"yes"
"What?"
"yes, we can cut my hair, come with me" Regulus suddenly gets up and starts to pull James up not even caring that he just held hands with James Potter, too ecstatic.
"Yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming. Where are we going again?" James asked as they raced down the stairs of the Astronomy Tower.
"Someplace that has what we need", normally James would press for a significantly less vague answer but the excitement on Reg's face was a good enough answer. They winded through passageways and shortcuts, dark hallways, stopping and making detours for prefects and Mrs Norris. Finally, they came to a wall, in a hallway James felt was familiar, he wondered how Regulus found it, so isolated from the rest of the school.
"Ok, um, you're dad works with hair right?"
"yeah, he cuts mine all the time"
"he ever taught you?"
”yeah, loads. I even did Marlene's and Paige's hair like last week"
"ok great. So now, think about everything you need to cut my hair, like the space, the furniture, the tools and everything"
"yeah, I'm thinking..."
"yep, so now just keep chanting over in your head, 'I need this" As James kept chanting he saw a door gradually appear in front of him. "Holy shit!"
"shhh, be careful, Mrs Norris likes to come up around here" As James walked in, he saw a small space to the right made like a hair salon, with the mirrors, the fancy chairs, and everything he could need. To the left, there was a small kitchen and a living room area with bookshelves everywhere. There was a door directly straight in front of him, god knows what was there.
"Welcome to the Room of Requirement. A refuge from life and all other insanely stupid things"
"Can Mrs Norris still hear me?"
"Nope and no one except the people you want can come in"
"Holy fuck!" As James walked over to the salon-styled part of the room, his jaw dropped at the sight of the hair products, tools, all the best of the best. "You ready, cause I'm so excited to try these scissors, literally perfect for your hair"
Regulus walked over to the mirror and sat down as James started to work away.
There's laughter, shouting and music. Remus likes music, so he starts to nod his head along to the songs. He watches the crowd from his place at the record player, seeing Lily dancing with Marlene, Peter trying to talk to Emmeline Vance, James nowhere to be found (a usual occurrence for the past few weeks ), and Sirius dancing and singing with Mary. As the next Bowie track came along, Moony started to sing along.
'Wake up you sleepy head, put on some clothes, shake off your bed'
"Hey Remus, how are you doing tonight?" He turned around to find Lily standing there.
"Yeah, as if you care, go talk to Mary, you've been staring at her all night"
"She's busy dancing, besides it would be too weird after what happened on Saturday" She looked back to where Mary was now talking to Derek Kirkwell and fought back a grimace.
'I look out my window, what do I see? A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me'
"Why, what happened on Saturday?"
"I'll explain later, for now, I'm gonna go get so pissed that I forget it entirely"
'All the nightmares came today'
"Alright then, you do that" Remus made a mental note to check on her later, she tended to be like James when drunk; prone to saying stupid things.
'And it looks as though they're here to stay'
As Remus looked over the crowd again, someone caught his eye. Sirius was making out with Ravenclaw girl on his lap, laughing and smiling with her.
'Oh you pretty things (Oh you pretty things), Don't you know you're driving your mamas and papas insane'
As Remus stood there in shock as he watched Sirius stop, smile again and then turn around. As he caught Remus's eye his smile faltered, looking quickly back at the girl and talking to her in her ear. Remus didn't stick around anymore, as he headed out the door of the common room, towards the tunnel at Hogsmeade.
Fuck he was so stupid to believe they were getting somewhere. So stupid. He crawled out of the tunnel, stealing a chocolate frog on his way out of Honeyduke's, not bothering to lock the door again. He wandered up the bustling street until going in the Hog's Head, fitting right in with his scars. Walking up to the bushy-bearded bartender and asking for a bottle of firewhiskey and handed over a galleon he'd exchanged over the summer.
As he started the bottle, he asked the bartender for another. Just in case.
Sirius yelled in the girl's ear, it was so loud. "Sorry, I have to go", she just smiled and went off dancing with one of her friends.
He raced out of the common room, yelling at people to get out of the way. He could hear someone walking along towards the moving staircases. Fuck, why did Prongs have to take the map, at least Sirius had grabbed the cloak off Paige before he left.
He set off, running for the stairs, thinking about where Remus would go. When he finally reached the stairs, he could see someone taking the staircase to the third floor, coincidentally where the tunnel to Hogsmeade was. As he got to the third floor, his suspicions were confirmed when he could slightly hear the stone sliding into place in the distance.
Years ago he wouldn't have been able to hear anything that far away but his animagus has heightened his senses so much now, which happens to be incredibly useful to find Moony. Finally reaching the One-Eyed Witch, muttering 'Dissendium' and bolting along the passageway, to find that the trap door had been left open and the front door had been left unlocked.
As he locked the door behind him, none of the passersby's noticing, he went up to the Three Broomsticks to find Moony. It was lively that night, filled with laughter and music, he went up to the bar to see if Moony was there.
"You sure you should be here Sirius? Teachers like to let off a little steam after exams too you know?" Sirius tilted his head to find Rosmerta, filling up shots of firewhiskey.
"My dear Rosmerta," a snort as she cocked her eyebrow at him,
"I was just looking for my friend, but seeing as he is not here, I shall get out of your hair and Slughorn's radar"
"Best to go out the back, I saw Flitwick come in as well" Sirius tipped an imaginary hat at Rosmerta and as he was about to jump over the bar to go out the back, he heard something interesting
"Man you should have seen the guy's face from the Hogs Head, massive scar right from his forehead to the other side of his jaw. He was heading down the road to the Shrieking Shack, don’t even know why they let that old place stay open, so shady"
Well then, he found Moony.
He pushed himself over the bar, stealing one of the firewhiskey shots and winked at Rosmerta who rolled her eyes and said "You do have to pay for that you know"
"Of course, just not today" Before she could answer, he ran out to the kitchen and through the back door.
Heading for the shrieking shack, he could hear someone talking at the old pay phone "I wasss so so so stupid Grant. He was just there, kissing her, didn't even know her. Why can't he kiss me like that, like, like... hooold on" Remus proceeded to drop the receiver from where he sitting on the floor of the phonebooth, step outside and vomit into a bush.
Grant had somehow been put on speaker magically, and he'd started to laugh. "You alright luv? Reminds me of some nights back in Wales" so that's who this Grant guy was.
"Yeah, yeah. Don't think I don't remember when you tried to steal that stupid car. Thiss is great!" Remus shouted that last bit so loud Sirius flinched "You're stupid and I'm stupid, we're both stupid. For some reason I thought for a second something might actually happen"
"Babes he'd either have to be straight as an arrow or stupider than the both of us combined not to fall for you alright, he’s got a stupid bloody name that’s for sure"
Offended by this Grant fella, he felt a twinge of jealousy as he heard them talk. The thing was, Sirius was in a confusing situation at the moment. Every time he tried to start something up again with Moony, he'd hear his parents' voices in his head. They were there now a lot, whispering about his Uncle, "not natural", "disgusting" and many other words. Sirius obviously knew it probably wasn't true, but he could never get the words out of his head, like a game of hot and cold, dying down as soon as he kissed a girl, yelling when he was alone or with Remus. Screaming until he had to leave otherwise his brain would've split open. Just as he was about to come out to apologise, Remus started raising his voice again.
"I can bet you, right now... He's gonna try to find me, he'll ask why am I upset. Pretending to be entirely oblivious to his stupid fucking efforts to fuck me over. YOU HEAR THAT SIRIUS, I FUCKING KNOW!"
Sirius leaned past the wall to see Remus with his head between his knees, the reciever murmuring something to him, so deciding to leave Moony alone tonight, and let him talk to this Grant. As he was going back through the tunnel a question popped into his mind, "Where the fuck was Prongs?"